


Pretty Wicked Things

by yaodai



Series: Rebellious [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Gen, dathomir in the second part, kanan hera and chopper are there too, mostly talking in the first part, they need to deal with the new information, through their role is not important enough to give them a tag, zeb you poor thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-13 14:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7979506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Garazeb Orrelios failed to protected his people and now the fear of being unable to protect his crew is stronger than ever.<br/>Meanwhile the destiny or the Force itself mercilessly drags him forward, to the planet where dead things are still roaming free.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pretty Wicked Things (A)

"Rebellious"

Part IV: Pretty Wicked Things

 

Since Kanan and Ezra came back from the disaster that was the whole Malachor thing, she and Hera were desperately putting their resources and contact lists together, trying to find help for Kanan. It was supposed to be easy. Medical resources should be available to anyone who needed them and because of the long, bloody Clone Wars people wearing prosthetics were a common sight. Yet there they were, unable to find anything.

The doctors Rex knew personally were either missing or arrested and relocated somewhere. Some of the contacts were even worse - they learned about a surgeon, who supposedly had access to advanced medical resources, only to almost end up arrested by the Empire troops, because the fucker was working for them. He wasn't the only one either.  
The Empire was doing a truly amazing job at slowly but surely cutting off everyone that wasn't standing with them from things everyone deserved. To get anything bigger than a simple flu healed, a lot of bureaucracy was involved, dozens of different forms to fill and ID checks. Cheating through the whole thing was simply impossible and a risk to involve an outsider way too great, even if all they needed were just the eyes and not the surgeon.

The stupid self-sacrificing man actually told them to stop, that they needed to help everyone rather than to concentrate on one man and Sabine really wanted to punch him for that. Zeb knew the tell-tale motion of fists closing and then opening again too well. He also was familiar with the girl enough to know that she will not hit Kanan. She would probably find a lonely corner to punch a wall, or drag him or Ezra into a sparring match, but she would not raise a hand against someone who was simply acting like a fool. At this moment, Zeb shared the sentiment. He too, wanted to punch something, to feel hard surface against his knuckles, to hear a well satisfying noise of his fist smashing into an imperial helmet… sadly, he couldn’t have it. And smacking around Ezra’s collection wasn’t doing a thing for him. Tried that one already, ended up with a really annoyed Jedi Padawan. Wasn’t worth it.

Zeb would gladly mop in the cornflakes for the whole day, if not for Sabine entering the room in hurry, slightly pale and with the oddest expression on her face. He remembered what she was doing a few moments ago, where she was these few moments ago and he honestly didn’t like the tale her disturbed expression was telling him.

"Something happened?" he asked, immediately straightening his back, hundreds of suspicious thoughts blossoming in his mind in an instant. "What did he do?"

Zeb was ready to do... something. Clearly, he has no clue what, but sitting around while his friends were stressed so much. Even if there wasn't much he could actually do against a Force user, he was still going to at least try.

"He just said something," Sabine made a gesture that was supposed to calm Zeb down, but it only unnerved him further. The Sith, they were supposed to be masters in manipulation and Darth Maul was definitely not sleeping during that lesson, considering what Zeb knew about his history. And the little bits and pieces of history the Mandalorians were not talking about with outsiders, they mere existence proving he was right to be suspicious.

"What?" he asked again.

"Should I go get Kanan?"

"I..." Sabine licked her lips, pausing for a short moment. "I think you should."

"Okay," Zeb carefully nodded.

He didn't want to leave the girl alone, he had no idea what was going on and just now he remembered that Kanan was blind and how he could forget that in the first place at all? After the return, the crew moved stuff around, as discretely as they could, to make clear passages through the ship, so the Jedi could move around with more ease. They ended up bumping into everything instead, not used to things standing in unusual places, but the bruises were worth it; Kanan was the only one who didn’t have any. Still, Kanan was probably the only one who would know what to do, whatever was going on.

"You fine with waiting for a moment?" Zeb asked. He could use the radio, but was unsure if letting their guest know about the emergency meeting was a good idea, so using his feet seemed to be safer.

Sabine just nodded. She still was chewing on her lip and was pale, her brow furrowed in deep thought.

With a sigh and the stomach twisting into a nervous knot, Zeb wandered out to look for other crew members. For the first time in his life, he was glad than the Ghost wasn’t all that big and that it was so easy to bump into someone after just turning a corner.

Chopper found himself. He was probably listening on the conversation - conversations? - because he was collecting blackmail material or something equally ridiculous and stumbled into this situation. With a small whistle, the droid followed Zeb.

"So, we're missing just two, huh?" Zeb asked.

Chopper answered with a questioning beep.

Zeb decided to not comment on that, instead he headed out straight for the cockpit.  
As he expected, both Kanan and Hera were there, just sitting. Not talking, not making plans, just sitting, Kanan with a calm face, with white bandages contrasting vividly with his skin, while Hera was stealing worried gazed at him.

"Something is up?”

“Afraid so,” Zeb nodded. “Sabine wants to talk with you guys.”

Kanan tilted his head to the side, forehead slightly furrowed over the white bandages that covered the upper side of his face. “This sound urgent.”

“I honestly have no idea,” Zeb admitted.

They followed him anyway. In the hindsight, it was quite stupid, they could radio the girl to come to the cockpit since everyone else was already crowded in there, but the thought hit Zeb only after they were halfway through the ship. Sabine was waiting in the exact same spot where Zeb left her, not even sitting down by the table, on the narrow sofa they dragged at some point in, to have an illusion of a dining area. The bowl with half-eaten flakes was still there, through what was inside by now surely turned into an unappetizing, lukewarm mush.

"So, what's this is about?" Hera asked, not letting the awkward silence to settle in. "Did something happen?"

"It was him, right?" Zeb quickly jumped to conclusions, narrowing his eyes and looking Sabine up and down.

"Did he do anything?" It was utterly terrifying to have someone like Maul onboard. While Zeb never left his home planet until it wasn't home anymore, he still heard stories. Didn't believe in them, until he saw what Kanan could do, what even a kid like Ezra could do. "Well, all the limbs are still attached and I'm not even lying in the pool of blood," Sabine rolled her eyes.

"So no. We just talked."

"Talked," Zed repeated after her. "And what was so unsettling with just talking that you needed to find us immediately?"

"Um, guys? Maybe we should not be all that suspicious about the guy who literally saved our lives two times just after meeting us?" Ezra said, casually crawling out of the vent next to the small kitchenette. "He could just walk away, you know. Nobody even knew he was there."

"Ezra..." Hera groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. The boy only gave an annoyed huff.

"What?" he asked, putting hands on his hips. "Now I'm the precious little kid that needs to be protected?"

"It's not that," Sabine said, grimacing slightly.

"Then what?" Ezra raised his eyebrows. "I'm biased or something?"

Zeb felt like rolling his eyes. The brat was too smart for his own good and while he definitely had sort spot for morally doubtful people like Hondo, he definitely was too smart to not notice that Maul was very obviously evil.

"Ezra, that's not it," Sabine said with a groan. She stole a split of second to glare at Zeb, because excluding the kid was his decision and she was pretty much taking the fall for it. "I asked Kanan here, because he's a Jedi and was a part of their order, and Zeb could possibly hear something and Hera is Cham Syndulla's daughter and the guy was a big shot before the Empire..."

"Could possibly hear something?" Zeb raised an eyebrow.

"What something?" And how everything was even connected for all of so different people to possibly hear about it before?

"This is something big enough to be dangerous," Kanan more stated than asked.

Sabine just nodded.

"Well, it's not like I can be in any more danger than I already am," Ezra said with a shrug. "So, if you want to protect me from knowing too much... cut it out, pretty please?"

Zeb sighed. As much as he wanted to reality to be different, the kid was right. Being force sensitive rebellion member - and whose fault was that anyway? - who already was on the list of many Imperials. The Inquisition, too. And if the Empire was happy to waste resources on search for Maul who was supposedly dead, then they sure would throw even much more at the hunt for a Jedi. Sabine probably came to the same conclusion. Her eyes softened with something that looked like a pity, then she turned towards Kanan.

"Let's get this over with," The Jedi decided. "What did he said?"

"That the Emperor is a Sith." There was a long moment of silence or maybe it was just Zeb who tuned everything else of, because his brain was using all of its power to wrap itself around these surreal words, trying to make some sense out of them.

"Yes, that was my reaction too," Sabine noted, eyes skimming over her friends.

"But what reason... why would he say something like that?" Hera was the first one to regain her ability to speech. "This is... big. This explains so much! Offering information of that sort just like that..."

There was a suspicion in her voice and Zeb shared the feeling. There was a price attached to everything these times and something like that should have a very ridiculous ticket attached to it. However dropping the bomb just like that, it was leaving the Zabrak in a difficult situation to extract whatever he wanted for it. Usually it was the other way around.

"I'm pretty sure he had no idea," Sabine said. "That we don't know. He even looked surprised."

"Well, he said that his ship crashed on Malachor," Ezra said. "And the Inquisitors seemed to be surprised to actually find him, even if they were send to look for him in the first place... so, it was quite some time ago."

"That might explain thing or two," Zeb muttered. Like the fact why the guy was lying low at all instead of immediately resurfacing and going on a happy murder-spree, like Zeb expected him to do. He was just hanging out down in the workshop, either going through all the school flimsi and datapads Ezra managed to collect on his undercover mission at the Imperial Academy on Lothal. Then there were those trashy little robots he started building just after he put together a leg to stand on. As far as Zeb could tell - through he never wandered close enough to fully examine any of the droids - they were mostly a flying cameras. It was making sense, the guy couldn't exactly show his face and the camera was the best next thing.

"You think he was telling the truth?" Hera asked furrowing her brow, gently putting hand on Kanans shoulder.

He was silent for a short moment.

"This definitely makes sense. And explains Vader and the Inquisitorium," he finally said. "If he wasn't one of them could easily take over. Or literally use him as a puppet to do their bidding."

"No, wait, how it does make sense?" Sabine shook her head. "You guys, I mean, Jedi and the Sith and whatever the old man in the hangar decided he is, can feel each other, right? In the Force, however that's working. So why the Jedi didn't notice the guy before they even saw him?"

"I have the same question," Hera nodded.

"I..." Ezra furrowed his brow. "I don't think they could."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, on the Phantom I could pretty much poke Maul," Ezra said, jabbing air in front of him as if he was trying to demonstrate. "But in the Force? Nope, like he wasn't there at all. It was so weird!"

"Kid, you're still a novice to the whole thing," Zeb pointed out. This whole thing was surreal enough without this whole spiritual thing he barely could wrap his mind around. "Kanan?"

"He's telling the truth," the man said, rubbing at the edge of his bandages. Hera smacked his hand away, hissing the obvious warnings about how upsetting the wounds was a bad thing at him. "I couldn't tell Maul was there," Kanan continued as if nothing happened. "Unless he let himself be heard."

"He let himself..." Zeb shook his head, because they were talking about the guy who was walking on metal legs on a metal surface, but decided to just let that one go. Force users were all stuffed up their ears with abilities to do stuff that appeared to be impossible, so why he was even surprised at this point. Instead, he asked a different question.

"With all due respect, because I know how well you can do your thing at all..."

"You are certain that the Masters of the Jedi would be able to beat the odds," Kanan nodded. "We wanted to believe that nothing was escaping their sight too. And yet..." he sighed. "The whole story might be unavailable to us and we probably will never learn the whole story."

"This is not the important part anyway. Not at this moment, not to us," Hera said with a sigh. "We have other things to worry about than the past."

She was trying very hard to not steal a gaze at Kanan, but Zeb noticed it anyway. She was worrying so much about him and the fact that he was their priority only up until the rebellion would need their crew more. It was going to happen, sooner than later. That was pretty much it, which wasn't making Zeb happy in the least. They still had no idea how to help Kanan, they had no clue where to look for said help and now they knew things that were painting quite the bright target mark on their backs. And there was still a guy of questionable morality on their ship, to top all of that. At least right now it didn't look like betraying them would lead to any nice things for Maul. Sabine was walking next to him, with thoughtful expression on her face. He was starting to dislike when she was thinking, it was leading to unpleasant places.

"Any ideas?" Zeb asked, not really expecting to hear an answer.

"I'm going to meet up with Ketsu," she said, voice a little bit absent, thoughts far, far away from here. "Soon, actually. The meeting was about some other thing and we planned it for awhile now..."

"Are you sure you up for that now?" Zeb asked. "You've just returned and the trip wasn't exactly a milk run."

"Oh, please!" she rolled her eyes. "How long do you know me? Since yesterday, or something?"

Zeb shook his head, chuckling. "Right. sorry about that, I know you're up to kick ass any time. I just..."

"Yeah, I know the feeling," Sabine nodded. "And sorry for jumping up your throat. I think I'm tired, but this thing? It's going to be just talking."

"If you say so."

"Anyhow, I want to run one thing by you, before doing anything."

"Me?" he asked. "Why not Kanan? Or Hera, since she's the actual captain of this ship?"

Sabine winced. "Considering I'm seriously thinking about poking at less... usual sources, I think you can imagine their reaction."

"Black Suns?" Zeb guessed. Indeed, he could imagine their reactions to that. While they were working for the scum like Vizago and some other lowlifes, there were still lines those two wouldn't cross. Zeb wasn't sure he would cross them either. The Black Suns, they were dangerous and merciless.

"Ketsu was working with them for some time," Sabine continued. "She joined the Rebellion, but she might still have some contacts inside, someone owning her a favor, stuff like that."

"Favor big enough to get stuff that big?"

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to ask," she said with a shrug. "Ketsu isn't stupid. Or suicidal. If this is too dangerous or something, she would just tell me to screw off."

"Then why do you need to run this stuff by me? It sounds like you already made your decision."

"There's one more thing," Sabine started. Zeb groaned, because connecting the dots wasn't all that difficult. "It was years ago, but he pretty much gathered every criminal he could find and them took over the Mandalore," Sabine said. "Not many people knows about this, since Death Watch has a certain thing against outsiders... but that happened. And he could know who to ask."

"If these people are still alive," Zeb grunted. Which was a bit doubtful, considering how short the average lifespan in organizations such as Dark Suns was. Still, it could be something and no matter how hard Zeb was thinking about it, he couldn't find a reason that would make selling them off a good thing for Maul.

"Do whatever you think is the best," Zeb finally said. "I don't like it much, but that's your decision."

It wasn’t telling the best things about him, the fact that instead of letting the girl go and do what she intended to do, he stuck around, with back glued to a wall, listening in on a conversation that wasn’t his.

“This is me,” Sabine said loudly, as soon as she entered the room. “Again. “

She was probably making herself feel better by acting like that. Zeb didn’t hold it against her, the guy she was talking to? Truly unnerving.

“It would be quite difficult to miss such a loudly entrance,” Maul said. As always, his voice was soft and loud enough it was hard to make out every word of this conversation.

“You’ve probably noticed, we still don’t have the set of cybernetic eyeballs to put in our Jedi,” Sabine continued, playing a role of someone she was not. Was it her bounty hunter persona, the one she was using while still flying across the galaxy with Ketsu Onyo? Or something she was using during her Imperial Academy days? Zeb wasn’t sure. He didn’t like it much.

“Are you trying how many times I'm going to repeat myself? But yes, that Jedi of yours is still blind,” the man snickered. “I assume, you have tried all the legal ways of obtaining the eyes?”

“And some of the less stellar options,” Sabine agreed. “I might have a friend in darker places, but we’re unsure about thing or two. And since the Shadow Syndicate was your creation…”

“It is dead and gone by now,” he cut in, his voice slightly lower than before, slightly deeper. “However you do want to ask if I do know someone resourceful, from back when it connected most of the criminal world.”

“Do you?”

Maul hummed. “I might. However finding said person through traditional channels would probably take months.”

“That’s not the time we have on our hands,” Sabine agreed. “But I’m going to try anyway. What are the less traditional ways of finding people anyway?”

Zeb could only guess that Maul smiled. He had seriously bad feeling about this.


	2. Pretty Wicked Things (B)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We visit Dathomir, where many dark things thrive despite being dead.

“Rebellious”

Part IV: Pretty Wicked Things (B)

 

There were but a few things in the Universe that made Garazeb Orrelios feel uneasy. The Sith were definitely among them and the fact that one of them apparently joined their crew wasn't making the Lasat warrior feel any better. Zeb didn't know much about the Force and even less about the Dark Side of it, but if someone told him to pick a planet that looked like it belonged to the realm of evil, he would have little to no trouble with pointing right where they were currently heading.

The planet even from the orbit looked just plain menacing. It was all dark reds and shades of rust and even the sun in the middle of the star system appeared to be dimmed, somehow. The closer they got, the worse it looked like. The shades of rust and the dark shadows turned into vegetation. The threes were humongous, obscuring the unpleasantly reddish sky and hiding the ground into seemingly neverending darkness. Their bark was covered in long, thick patches of moss. It was also hanging from branches, weighting them down to the point they were almost touching the ground.

"This really doesn't look inviting," Zeb grimaced, carefully taking ship down to the small patch of land that looked like it was spacious enough. After walking outside, Zeb thanked all the deities he knew about that the Phantom didn't sink. Where they landed, the ground was hard, but just a few meters away it all turned into a slough, with the surface covered with speciously thick vegetation. The stems were long and tangled, their surface covered in thorns. Every step he took was announced with a crack of breaking wood, followed with an unpleasant, wet sound as his feet sank into the mud. The air wasn't any better, it smelled kind of like seaweed, moist to the point Zebs fur felt like someone splashed a bucked of water the moment he stepped outside.

"I'm definitely not a fan," Zeb grunted.

By all means he wanted out. And he couldn’t, because of the guy who led him here in the first place. The Sith were made of deception, so someone had to keep an eye on him. For obvious reasons, Kanan had to sit this one out and Hera had way too many things on her plate already. Ezra was definitely out. While Maul had yet to try to approach the kid, it was still a thing that would be really bad. No reason to give the guy his chance on a silver platter. Chopper, that psychotic little trashcan actually liked the guy. Probably because he finally found someone who found throwing people and droid out of the airlock as funny as he did. There was Sabine, but the girl was very... conflicted about Maul. He happened to be just the same guy who took over the Death Watch and then Mandalore and was openly opposing the Emperor, which was good and bad mixed into one confusing mess, at least from her perspective. She still hadn't made her mind about this whole situation.

So, here he was, stuck with a Sith on a very dead planet, looking or Force knows - literally - what, walking through swamps filled with creepy plants sticking out of the mud here and there. The Sith himself was a creature of contradictions, Zeb decided. He was moving like an old man, back bended and all, but at the same time he was build like a warrior in his prime. And he was still able to move like that too, considering the crazy story about him not only jumping in front of three Inquisitors, but actually dictating the pace of the fight. What was up with that, Zeb had no idea.

"How do you know we can find your contact on this mudball anyway?" Zeb asked. Moment later he cringed, because the rumble of his voice was awfully loud. Or rather, the whole place was utterly, gravely quiet. It was an utterly unpleasant swamp, but it was still supposed to make noise. There should be some wildlife around, bugs, something! Yet, it appeared like he and the former Sith were the only living things around.

"Not my contact," maul corrected him, his voice quiet as always. "A way to find the contact."

"A way," Zeb repeated after him. "What are you, leaving a graffiti on ruins for each other, or something?"

"No," Maul chuckled. "Magic."

He had to hear that wrong. "Magic?"

"Magic," Maul replied completely serious.

"And you seriously couldn't do that on the ship?"

"Because it doesn't work like that," Maul replied.

That left with Zeb with close to no response, besides a growl filled with frustration.

"Are you sure it will work?"

"I hope so."

"You... hope," Zeb stopped in his track. That sounded more and more like a plain old trap and he would be a fool to fell into something like that.

The Sith noticed him stopping, or maybe felt his emotions, or something like that. The Force sensitives were always like that, reading others like books, always seeing more, always being something more. Eerie and otherworldly and so very, very dangerous.  
Maul stopped walking, then turned around in a fluid series of motions. First he turned his head as if he was going to look back at Zeb, then there was a shift of his shoulder and finally, one of the metal legs stepped aside.

"Look," he said, his eyes shining in the darkness with yellowish light. "I know that telling you to trust the Force would do nothing and I know you don't trust me further than you can throw me. Which is impossible anyway."

"What is your point?"

"Exactly?" Maul chuckled. "What reason do I have to stab you in the back, Lasat? Think about it. The Empire wants me dead even more that it wants you dead. I have close to no allies. I believe you can do the math yourself."

Zeb could. This proved nothing but the fact that the Sith was indeed fucked.

"How do you know this planet will work with that... magic of yours?"

"Not mine," Maul shook his head. "Its."

"This planet is magical?"

"It is hard to explain," the Sith admitted with a grimace. "But the closer we're getting, the more certain I am that it's going to work."

"Closer to what?" "For a lack of better word, let's say it is a temple. Or something close enough," Maul said.

Yet again, it explained pretty much nothing. Zeb swallowed a groan and decided to stick to shaking his head instead. He had to let go of steam somehow and movement appeared to much more reasonable thing to do that provoking arguments with the guy who was currently lading him through the swamp. He was about half-way done, when he noticed something off. It was covered in these annoying thorny plants, but the surface was still much brighter than anything on this planet. Zeb knelt down and carefully brushed away the stems, uncovering the rusted surface of something that looked just like...

"A battle droid?" Zeb blinked rapidly. This planet definitely didn't look like anything the Separatists were interested in. No easily available resources, placed in a middle of nowhere to the point they knew where to jump only because the Jedi holocron confirmed what Maul told them, no any established trade routes anywhere nearby.

"Just a few decades ago, the Nightsisters were ruling over Dathomir," Maul said, observing him, face expressionless. "Now you can find their corpses here and there. That's what you have for working with the Sith. Well, at least now we know we're going in the right direction."

Zeb felt the answers at the tip of his fingers. The picture was all too familiar.  
Soon, there was much more chunks of metal trapped in the thorny foliage, broken and rusted beyond being of any use at all. The terrain also changed, or rather, the vegetation did. A lot of huge trees that until now were towering over the ground were broken like twigs, huge pillars of their trunks rotting away, imprisoned in the thick binds of dark ground plants. These were probably the only happy things around, suddenly having access to that miserable excuse of a sunlight and growing like crazy. It was more like a razor wire now, huge and menacing, with thorns as big as Zebs fingers. Droid carcasses were of many different shapes, some Zeb was completely unfamiliar of. Every one of them would look menacing if not the fact that it was just so very broken.

Counting the robots gave him something to do, up until the point the yellowish, pale thing sticking out of the mud Zeb set his eyes on wasn't made of metal. A hand was reaching out from the depths, skeletal fingers still wrapped up in a glove and a web of what once was skin. They found the witches of Dathomir.

They followed the path of destruction, maneuvering through terrain that looked more and more like a graveyard for both humans and the machines. Zeb could swear he saw a missile, stuck in one of the half-rotten stumps. There was probably more of these all over the place, just waiting to explode. He just hoped nobody had the time to set up landmines. The torn and broken vegetation and deep holes in the ground with dirty, muddy water slowly filling them in told Zeb that some of the explosives went off. And not too long ago. He furrowed his brow. Looking for a pattern, to guess where the missiles could be, was all too easy, the trail of holes was way to regular to be made by something so random as duds going of. It looked more like...

"Are here any big animals?" Zeb asked. It was still very, very silent, but if something so big was capable of living in a place like this, it probably managed to scare off everything else. Either that or it ate it.

"Some," Maul agreed, not appearing to be very interested in whatever murderous fauna could be rampaging around. "There should be rancorns."

"Rancorns?" Zeb raised an eyebrow, looking at the huge holes in the ground with doubt. "They are supposed to be big, but not that big!"

"As far as I can tell they were quite well feed and it didn't change with the sentient occupants of this planet dying off," Maul said with a shrug.

Zeb shuddered, because the suggestion was just gross. It also explained all too well why he could spot only parts of bodies and never one that was whole.

"That's... cold." "They are dead, it's not like they have a mental power to appreciate your sentiment." Definitely cold, Zeb decided.

Maul didn't look like he was moved by what had happened here at all. At least Zed couldn't detect a snide undertone. Well, it was a bit nasty, but the nastiness was pointed at Zeb asking dumb question about the corpses and not the actual corpses.

"Well, let's try to not get close to the rancor," Zeb sighed. "It wasn't heading wherever we are heading, right?"

"Cease making noise and it will," Maul shot him a short, disgusted glare.

Zeb had to admit, the guy was right, even if he wasn't too nice about it. They were the only things making noise around. They probably sounded like dinner.  
Zeb proceed to follow the Zabrak in silence, trying to not think about the giant, man-eating rancor. Or about what he could possibly stepped on that made this loud, crunchy noise. Definitely not thinking about that. Or about what exactly was in the mud. Zeb shuddered. He really needed a distraction.

Luckily for him, the stones slowly started growing from the ground, barely visible under the thorny plants. They were clearly man made, the cuts were way too clean to be the work of nature. Then there was more. Miserable remains of fabric tangled between the thorns. The ground was becoming much more solid and the trees shorter. One day, a society was existing here. There wasn't any big building visible, any huge monuments and especially no signs of technological progress. Excluding the many, many destroyed battle droids rusting around, it looked primitive.

"What now?" Zeb asked, carefully stepping over a body. There were more of these around too, some of the skeletal remains surprisingly whole and old. Very, very old, dried out and mummified by time. Something was definitely off. Very, very off and Zeb liked the whole planet even less than few minutes ago.

"Now we go down," Maul said, completely unaffected by the creepy scenery.

He walked towards one of the building. For Zeb it looked just the same as the rest of this place; broken by the battle that killed all these people, covered in wines and thorns, because the nature was taking over without showing an ounce of mercy. The buzz of an activated lightsaber in the overwhelming silence sounded almost like a thunder, but it died almost as soon as the lightning would.

The entrance didn't look all that inviting, with only darkness looming inside and with the smoke still coming off from the edges. Not waiting for Zeb, Maul stepped inside. Zeb took a deep breath and, not having any better ideas, followed the former Sith, stepping into darkness. Instantly, the air became much colder. Zeb breathed out through his mouth, mostly out of curiosity: will there be a white cloud coming out, or he felt so cold only because his fur was wet?

It was probably just his brain, just the result of having his sense of sight restricted by the darkness so much, but Zeb could swear that their footsteps were not the only sounds in the deep, dark tunnel. At first he mistook it with the sound of breath, with the sound o little bits of dirt shuffled around as they walked, but the deeper in they wandered, the more unnatural the new voices appeared to be. Voices. That was what Zeb was hearing or what he was imagining to hear, but the unfamiliar sounds were like whispers, words in an unknown language, passing through air, wrapping themselves around his arms and legs and making his mind go numb.

Zeb shook his head and tried to concentrate on the hiss of the lightaber; Maul activated it yet again, using the deadly blade as a light source. The whispers were there still, restless and stronger with every new step. It wasn't as dark as before, through Zeb highly doubted that it was a good thing. There ground seemed to be moving under his feet, shining with eerie, greenish glow. Or rather, it was a mist, green but nor exactly emerald, crawling under their feet. Staring at it was making Zeb feel dizzy, it was making him see things, faces and hands and so many more things he couldn't even name.

Zeb shook his head once again. He didn't have time for horror stories and being creeped out by his own overactive imagination. They were here on a mission, through Zeb still couldn't guess what that mission was. At first he through the guy Maul was looking for was leaving some sort of information somewhere on this creepy rock. Then he was suspecting that Maul wanted to visit this place for more personal reason, but that didn't seem like it either. Suddenly, the tunnel widened, leading them into a wide cavern with a high ceiling...  
No, Zeb decided. Cavern, it was not. It was clearly man made, with a straight, walls covered in a pattern that looked too regular to be just an random occurrence. More like letters, carefully carved in the stone surface for some unknown reason. The floor was almost invisible, drowned in a green mist that moved in a clearly unnatural way. It seemed to be wrapping itself - or maybe emerging from, it was hard to tell - from a heavy, stone table. The thing was right in the center of the room and humongous. Once, it was probably illuminated by the light coming from the hearth right behind it. Now it was just the mist, making it look much more menacing.

"This is...whatever you were looking for, isn't it?" Zeb asked, trying to keep his voice as quiet as possible.

"Indeed," Maul agreed, slowly walking towards the table.

His fingers brushed the stone surface with almost care, brow slightly furrowed and expression completely unreadable in the dim, shifting light. The lightsaber was of, left of the edge of the stone, looking oddly out of place. Mauls fingers traced the carved symbols as he slowly made his way around the table. Then he stopped.  
With his hands straight and spread wide on the stone surface, Maul closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. It looked almost like some of the exercises Kanan was doing with Ezra, Zeb though, observing, not sure what he was supposed to do. Interrupting would be bad, but what exactly was interrupting?

The mist shifted, whirled around, then it’s movement was not chaotic anymore. It rose, it was flickering and creating shapes much easier to take apart and it was heading towards Maul, who still stood in one place, with eyes closed and brow furrowed in concentration. It crept up the Zabraks legs like a vine, while the ghostly shapes whirled around, looking more and more like real people instead of effects of overactive imaginations.

There was a shift, a sudden change, even Zeb could feel. It was like the air suddenly changed into pure ice; the coldness was overwhelming, the terror of the unknown was freezing him in place. Mauls shoulders shuddered and his back hunched forward. His hands left the stone and went up, towards his face.  
For a split of second, Zeb caught the sight of Mauls face, eyes wide open, the blazing yellow dimmed by green lines creeping right towards his irises. He made a gasp, a pained little noise and then grabbed at his face, fingernails biting deep into the base of his horns.

The mist shot up, taking shapes, of many, many different bring. They whirled around, all enormous and powerful, looking down spitefully. They looked human, with pale faces and dark clothing, towering over them and obviously powerful.  
Still that little noise so out of character was what pushed Zeb into action. Before he even realized what he was doing, Zeb grabbed the lightsaber – the closest weapon around, even easier to access than the staff on his backs – and activated it.

“Away!” he shouted. Maul looked up, or whatever was inside his body now looked up, because his eyes were entirely green, while ghostly hands were wrapping themselves all around his body.

“You are hurting him!” Zeb waved the red blade around, shooing the green mist away. “You are killing him!”

Because there was no other reason for the former Sith to show any sign of weakness. Whatever was going on, it was bad and it needed to be stopped.

“He’s the only one who can communicate with you!” Zeb continued. “So leave him before you break that connection too!”

This was a shot in darkness. He had literally no idea what was going on, what sort of a history this place had beyond the obvious battle with the droid army at some point. But the words seemed to be just right. The wraiths hissed furiously. Then their shapes changed, swirling together until they became a humongous figure with a crown of horns, staring down at them, with an unreadable expression on his face.

Zeb expected something bad to happen. He just waved a lightsaber at probably the only beings in the galaxy that were completely resistant to that sort of blade. He expected to feel the fury, he was steadying himself against an onslaught of some sort, but it didn’t came at all. Mauls eyes rolled up and he swaggered against the table before he lost his balance and feel down the floor, as the green mist was leaving his body to form yet another horned being, this time much shorter than the previous one. It tilted it’s head, looking at Zeb as if it was expecting something o him and then it vanished.

“Thank you,” Zeb gasped.

He still had little to no idea what was going on besides the fact it went wrong in the worst way possible. He quickly reached Maul and stopped for a split of second, not sure if he will end up punched in the face or not. Maul however didn’t react when Zeb reached out towards him and did nothing when Zebs hand connected with his skin.  
The mist was still there, ghostly shapes tracing the complicated pattern of black tattoos, still dimming the yellow color of his eyes. He was like in a trance, or just plainly completely out of it and Zeb wasn’t sure if the whatever was haunting here will be so benevolent for much longer. It looked more like the part of it – the two high probably-Zabraks was letting them go, while whatever else was around definitely wasn’t going to let the former Sith go without a fight. So, Zeb did the only thing that seemed to make some sense.

Taking his breath and expecting a wild fury exploding at him at any moment, he picked Maul up and draped him on his shoulder, praying the entire time for the Zabrak to not wake up. Instead, whatever evil being was in the mist, woke up with a screeching, mind numbing scream, rushing towards them in sudden, terrifyingly fast motion. Zeb, reciting a litany of both prayers and curse words, and rushed towards the exit, back into the tunnel where they came from.

Never in his entire life Zeb had run up the stairs in a dark corridor so fast. Well, he probably had, considering dangerous life-style, being a rebel and all, but he definitely never did that with a former Sith Lord dangling on his shoulder. And damn, the guy was heavy! Zeb could understand Maul legs being heavier than expected because of being made of metal and all, but the other end of the Zabrak was equally heavy, quite surprising, given his rather lanky appearance. On the other hand, nobody dared to poke the guy. Lanky or not, it felt more like he was build of durasteel wire than flesh and bone.

Zeb looked nervously over his other shoulder. The mist was still there, following them like waves of the sea during particularly nasty storm. The voices were much clearer now, turned from whispers to growls and shrieks, filled with rage and pure will to tear and destroy.

"You changed your mind, or something?" Zeb growled at the faces, partially visible in the mist. Just a moment ago it was letting them go!

Zeb had no idea what was going on, but Maul was still completely out of it, so no chance for getting an answer to that question any time soon. Zeb pushed himself further, going as fast as it was possible in the damn, dark corridor. His toes hurt from missteps he didn't remember, his lungs burned from running like a madman. Then there was a light, a visible exit from this damp, dark tunnel and if Zeb could actually catch his breath he would announce re-entering the world outside with a victorious roar. That, and the fact he forgot there was a swamp waiting for him outside.

The light blinded him. As miserable as the sunlight was on this planet it was still brilliantly strong compared to the darkness of the cave they just emerged from. The mist exploded right after them with a vicious roar, spilling in the air, reaching out towards them with ghostly hands.  
Trying to not slow down much, Zeb forced himself to look through teary eyes, to find the way back to the ship. There! A fresh trail of footsteps, a broken wines on the ground! Zeb launched himself forward, not wanting to check if the mist shared dislike towards sunlight with other ghostly mystical beings. The ground was splashing under him, his legs were bogging into the loose, muddy ground. His fur and trousers were covered in mire and sticky, loose plants, while the thorny stems were biting into the fabric of his clothes and reaching even to pick at his skin.

He didn't dare to look back, he didn't dare to stop and check on Maul either. He could feel his breath on the shoulder blade, that had to be enough for the moment. So concentrated on getting to the ship as soon as possible, Zeb was completely surprised by the deafening roar coming from the side. With ears ringing and terror rising in his throat, he turned around.

"You have to be kidding me!" Zeb found the rancor, or rather, the rancor found him.

He heard stories about how rancors were able to smash Imperial Walkers, how they were almost big as the Walkers but he always through people were too freaked out about the teeth and how murderous the best looked to get the size right. He was sure they were making stuff up, because animals that weren't preying on other beings like Sarlacs did had no reason to grow this big: they would need too much food and too much weight would be a stain on their joints and so on... However this rancor looked like it could not only smash the Walker but eat it. How the hell, his thoughts were racing as he found the new energy to run even faster than before.

How in the hell they managed to miss that?! The teeth alone looked like they were bigger than Zebs whole body! The beast roared once again and the branches moved, pushed by the power behind the sound. Then the ground under his feet rumbled. The beast took a single step forward and the echo of it rippled through the muddy water, pushing the little droplets out of the puddles and making the dirt jump up, pushing against the thorny weeds and breaking some of the stems.

Zeb felt like screaming. He felt like screaming and cursing and crying, but he had no energy to spend on that, because he was running like he never had in his entire life, no longer noticing the thorns and odd crunches under his feet. He settled from wrapping his arm tighter around Maul. Dropping the guy would mean going back for him, which would mean going towards the rancor and Zeb would hate to be any closer to the beast than he already was.

Another step shook the ground, following them like an echo of an explosion. The ship was finally visible, but the rancor was getting dangerously close too. Zeb tried to calculate just how much ground it was covering by making a single step, but his feverish mind was refusing to cooperate. The next step made him lose his balance.

Dropping on one knee he had no choice but to take a peek, just to see a long row of saliva covered teeth. There were things stuck in between the teeth, rotting and dirty and the smell alone almost blinded him. The sheer terror however pushed Zeb back on his feet, forced him to jump forward. He entered the ship, however had no time to greet the familiar, hard metal of the ramp at all. He dumped Maul on the ground as soon as they entered the ship and launched himself towards the pilot seat.

He started the engines, ignoring all of the known procedures and the controls flashing in warning lights. Luckily, the Phantom was tuned up just for emergency exists like this one, immediately jumping off the ground. Just in time. The ship jumped in the air just as the jaws of the beast were closing, barely escaping the monstrous jaws. They clenched just behind the Phantom, almost grinding against the back of the ship.

Not wanting to count on his luck, Zeb pushed the ship forward, upwards, away. It shook, it beeped in the protest for being treated like that, but it escaped the monstrous jaws closing right behind once again. The Phantom bit through the sky like a blast from the riffle, entering the orbit in no time and almost making Zeb smash face fist in the console. But that high, even the rancor couldn't jump. They were finally safe.

Zeb felt like laughing, but he was too tired to do so and he still was barely able to catch his breath. His muscles were twitching and flaring with pain, while feeling like loose noodles at the same time. All Zeb wanted to do now, was to drop on the pilot seat and just sleep, leaving the ship floating aimlessly in the orbit. He also knew it wouldn’t do. While he could deal with the cleaning all of the mud he splashed all over the Phantom, he couldn’t just leave Maul lying face down on the floor. That would be like asking for getting murdered.

Besides, his legs also needed some attention. The rush of adrenaline made him barely feel anything, but it was passing and he could clearly tell that the thorns did a number on his toes. Better to clean that up as soon as possible. With a heavy sigh and sending the last regretful glance at the seat, Zeb started moving around. First he cleaned off as much mud off himself as he could, then grabbed the first aid kit in one hand and Maul in the other. Thanking whatever higher powers there were that his species still was able to use feet almost as well as hands, Zeb lowered the co-pilot seat to the horizontal setting and then dropped the Zabrak on it. He was still completely out of it, eyes half-opened but glassy and unfocused.

"I really don't think any of that was your plan," Zeb grunted, zapping the seatbelts shut. Maul would sooner space himself out of the Ghost than let anyone see him vulnerable. He never looked vulnerable, he was walking with his back straight and that odd half-smile plastered on his face, greatly enjoying freaking everyone out.

"Well, before whatever that was invents space travel..." Zeb muttered, firing the computer up to calculate the jump into hyperspace. It was going to take a few minutes, but since nothing was chasing them - at least not now - he preferred to wait than to risk getting smashed into bits, because the ship jumped into some random space junk that floated in just the wrong area. Without an ounce of shame – Hera wasn’t here to scold him – he put his legs on the console.

With the first aid kit in his lap, Zeb carefully took care of the cuts and developing bruises, then he dropped the kit on the floor. He wasn’t in the mood for walking just to put it back where it belonged. After a few seconds of consideration, Zeb shuffled through storage compartment. He found a snack for himself, lyophilized fruits of some sort that had this nice crunch to them when they were dry, and yes, this was probably a stress eating thing, and a blanket.  
The Zabrak had a bit too low body temperature for something with two hearts and Zeb decided that it would be wiser to just drop a blanket on top of him instead of dealing with cranky, murderous guy with a lightsaber and a cold.

 

xxx

 

Entering the hyperspace was almost exciting and the spectacle of lights when the dots of stars were suddenly transforming into lines of light was always amazing. The problem was, they hyperspace itself. It was just plain boring, with nothing to keep eyes on. It was more empty than the space itself. No chance for floating trash, to see a star, or something.

Without nothing better to do, Zeb shuffled through his datapad, searching for something interesting and stealing a glance once in awhile at Maul. Thanks to the last one he managed to catch his eyes twitch. Zeb expected him to jump straight to his feet and activate the saber or something like that, but Maul did the exact opposite.

He cracked his eyelids open, but only enough to take a peek, keeping his breath as if he was still unconscious. Zeb had no idea what he was supposed to do now. Turn away and act like he didn't catch Maul playing dead? Keep looking at him? Say something? Luckily for him, Maul decided there was no reason to be stealthy. He blinked and grabbed the armrests with both of his hands, shifting in the seat. The movement looked stiff and uncomfortable. However there was no reaching out for lightsaber, no tearing stuff to shreds with the Force and no weird green mist.

"Sooo..." Zeb started carefully. "That was magic?"

Maul shot him a dirty glare, but Zeb was still breathing and having no trouble with doing so.

"Okay, dumb question," Zeb agreed. "And stating that it didn't go as planned would be even more stupid."

Maul ignored his babbling completely. With a small gesture of his hand, the screen of the ship lightened up. Zeb jumped in his seat, completely surprised by the sudden motion, but forced himself to relax. Maul wasn't changing the course, he wasn't cutting the trip in hyperspace short and he wasn't sending messages to anyone. All he did was accessing the files and the maps.

Zeb observed the screen shifting with fascination. It was odd, to see the numbers appear in quick succession without anyone pushing the buttons, the files open and close without any command. Maul was barely moving a finger, not bothering to even sit up; the seat was still in horizontal position. By all means, it looked like he was simply being lazy.

Well, Zeb decided, after all that shit that hit the fan, he had all the right to not feel like moving a finger. The number passing through the screen stopped and instead the map of known space started to change. The screen starter to enlarge one sector of the map, following the complicated net of the known hyperspace lanes, until it settled down on a single, insignificant moon.

"Wait," Zeb blinked. With all that had happened, he was sure that the magic and whatever was going on prevented Maul to get the information he was looking for.

"What?" Maul looked away from the map.

"You didn't say anything," Zeb muttered, feeling kind of guilty for assuming the whole thing was a failure.

"For what reason?" the Zabrak blinked. Apparently, they both were having severe miscommunication issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Having Maul miscommunicating with other people is a fun thing to do.  
> Through here he was improvising on the spot, but Zeb was so occupied by freaking out about one thing or another that he didn't notice a thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't planning on chopping this part into pieces. I wasn't even planning to show the crew deal with Maul accidentally dropping very dangerous info on them, but it felt too important to just cut out for the sake of keeping the episodic form of writing.
> 
> Do not fret, the second part is going to have the action. And ghosts, and creepy scenery and some awful jokes, because Maul is an awful person.


End file.
